Tensions rise as world faces short rations
By Russell Blinch and Brian Love
WASHINGTON/PARIS (Reuters) - Food prices are soaring, a wealthier Asia is demanding better food and farmers can't keep up. In short, the world faces a food crisis and in some places it's already boiling over.
Around the globe, people are protesting and governments are responding with often counterproductive controls on prices and exports -- a new politics of scarcity in which ensuring food supplies is becoming a major challenge for the 21st century.
Plundered by severe weather in producing countries and by a boom in demand from fast-developing nations, the world's wheat stocks are at 30-year lows. Grain prices have been on the rise for five years, ending decades of cheap food.
Drought, a declining dollar, a shift of investment money into commodities and use of farm land to grow fuel have all contributed to food woes. But population growth and the growing wealth of China and other emerging countries are likely to be more enduring factors.
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Monday, March 31, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Argentine farm strike enters 13th day
By BILL CORMIER, Associated Press Writer
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - President Cristina Fernandez refused to ease tax hikes on agricultural exports Tuesday, facing down angry farmers embroiled a nationwide strike that has all but halted production in one of the world's biggest beef-eating and beef-exporting nations.
At least 9,000 cattle normally enter this capital's sprawling stockyard each day for slaughter, yet not a single animal arrived this week due to the biggest farm and ranch strike in decades.
Scattered shops began emptying of beef, milk, chicken and cooking oil Tuesday as farmworkers mounted the most serious challenge yet to Fernandez's fledgling government.
South America's second-largest economy — a leading exporter of soybeans, beef and wheat — is in full farmbelt rebellion over a new sliding-scale increase in export taxes. Soybean taxes are being hiked from 35 percent to 45 percent, with smaller increases on corn and other farm products.
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By BILL CORMIER, Associated Press Writer
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - President Cristina Fernandez refused to ease tax hikes on agricultural exports Tuesday, facing down angry farmers embroiled a nationwide strike that has all but halted production in one of the world's biggest beef-eating and beef-exporting nations.
At least 9,000 cattle normally enter this capital's sprawling stockyard each day for slaughter, yet not a single animal arrived this week due to the biggest farm and ranch strike in decades.
Scattered shops began emptying of beef, milk, chicken and cooking oil Tuesday as farmworkers mounted the most serious challenge yet to Fernandez's fledgling government.
South America's second-largest economy — a leading exporter of soybeans, beef and wheat — is in full farmbelt rebellion over a new sliding-scale increase in export taxes. Soybean taxes are being hiked from 35 percent to 45 percent, with smaller increases on corn and other farm products.
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Grain prices soar globally
Rice shortages are appearing across Asia. In Egypt, the Army is now baking bread to curb food riots.
By Daniel Ten Kate
Bangkok, Thailand - - Rice farmers here are staying awake in shifts at night to guard their fields from thieves. In Peru, shortages of wheat flour are prompting the military to make bread with potato flour, a native crop. In Egypt, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso food riots have broken out in the past week.
Around the world, governments and aid groups are grappling with the escalating cost of basic grains. In December, 37 countries faced a food crisis, reports the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), and 20 nations had imposed some form of food-price controls.
In Asia, where rice is on every plate, prices are shooting up almost daily. Premium Thai fragrant rice now costs $900 per ton, a nearly 30 percent rise from a month ago.
Exporters say the price could eclipse $1,000 per ton by June. Similarly, prices of white rice have climbed about 50 percent since January to $600 per ton and are projected to jump another 40 percent to $800 per ton in April.
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Rice shortages are appearing across Asia. In Egypt, the Army is now baking bread to curb food riots.
By Daniel Ten Kate
Bangkok, Thailand - - Rice farmers here are staying awake in shifts at night to guard their fields from thieves. In Peru, shortages of wheat flour are prompting the military to make bread with potato flour, a native crop. In Egypt, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso food riots have broken out in the past week.
Around the world, governments and aid groups are grappling with the escalating cost of basic grains. In December, 37 countries faced a food crisis, reports the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), and 20 nations had imposed some form of food-price controls.
In Asia, where rice is on every plate, prices are shooting up almost daily. Premium Thai fragrant rice now costs $900 per ton, a nearly 30 percent rise from a month ago.
Exporters say the price could eclipse $1,000 per ton by June. Similarly, prices of white rice have climbed about 50 percent since January to $600 per ton and are projected to jump another 40 percent to $800 per ton in April.
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Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Wind power breaks records in Spain (AFP)
MADRID (AFP) — Wind power is breaking new records in Spain, accounting for just over 40 percent of all electricity consumed during a brief period last weekend, the country's wind power association said Tuesday.
As heavy winds lashed Spain on Saturday evening wind parks generated 9,862 megawatts of power which translated to 40.8 percent of total consumption due to low demand during the Easter holiday weekend, AEE said.
Between Friday and Sunday wind power accounted for an average of 28 percent of all electricity demand in Spain, which is a leading world producer of such energy, a statement from the association said.
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MADRID (AFP) — Wind power is breaking new records in Spain, accounting for just over 40 percent of all electricity consumed during a brief period last weekend, the country's wind power association said Tuesday.
As heavy winds lashed Spain on Saturday evening wind parks generated 9,862 megawatts of power which translated to 40.8 percent of total consumption due to low demand during the Easter holiday weekend, AEE said.
Between Friday and Sunday wind power accounted for an average of 28 percent of all electricity demand in Spain, which is a leading world producer of such energy, a statement from the association said.
LINK TO CON
Meat wagon: pork superbug!
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria thrives in CAFO pork, and Wall Street gobbles up Big Meat shares
Posted by Tom Philpott
Back in December, Michael Pollan wrote a important article about the antibiotic resistant bacteria MSRA, which Pollan decsribed like this:
... the very scary antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria that is now killing more Americans each year than AIDS -- 100,000 infections leading to 19,000 deaths in 2005, according to estimates in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Pollan writes that such strains have been around for a while, emanating from hospitals, where our medical experts quixotically drench patients with antibiotics, inevitably incubating resistant -- and virulent, for those of us who avoid antibiotics -- bacterial strains.
Now, Pollan reports, "a new and even more virulent strain -- called 'community-acquired MRSA' -- is ... killing young and otherwise healthy people who have not set foot in a hospital." Evidence is mounting that the source is that other great center of antibiotic reliance: the concentrated-animal feedlot operation, or CAFO.
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Antibiotic-resistant bacteria thrives in CAFO pork, and Wall Street gobbles up Big Meat shares
Posted by Tom Philpott
Back in December, Michael Pollan wrote a important article about the antibiotic resistant bacteria MSRA, which Pollan decsribed like this:
... the very scary antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria that is now killing more Americans each year than AIDS -- 100,000 infections leading to 19,000 deaths in 2005, according to estimates in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Pollan writes that such strains have been around for a while, emanating from hospitals, where our medical experts quixotically drench patients with antibiotics, inevitably incubating resistant -- and virulent, for those of us who avoid antibiotics -- bacterial strains.
Now, Pollan reports, "a new and even more virulent strain -- called 'community-acquired MRSA' -- is ... killing young and otherwise healthy people who have not set foot in a hospital." Evidence is mounting that the source is that other great center of antibiotic reliance: the concentrated-animal feedlot operation, or CAFO.
LINK TO CON
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Leftwing activists flock to Venezuela to soak up the socialist 'revolution'
Like Havana, Cuba, and Chiapas, Mexico, before it, Caracas draws liberals from around the world who want to experience Hugo Chavez's experiment in socialism.
By Sara Miller Llana
Caracas, VENEZUELA - The "hot corner" stands in the center of Caracas, in Plaza Bolívar. It's a makeshift booth papered with fliers that marks itself as the "launching point to the revolution." There militants rail against imperialism and greedy Yankees all day.
But this is not the excesses and exuberance of a few hometown activists. Across Caracas, appeals for social revolt are the city's constant background music. No matter what you do during the day – jog, ride the subway, simply cross the street – it's there. The murals and banners that drape the city – of revolutionaries "Che" Guevara and Simón Bolívar, of Fidel Castro, and now, of course, of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez – are the curtains onto the hottest stage along the "revolutionary circuit" in the world today. And leftists from everywhere are swarming in to see the show.
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Like Havana, Cuba, and Chiapas, Mexico, before it, Caracas draws liberals from around the world who want to experience Hugo Chavez's experiment in socialism.
By Sara Miller Llana
Caracas, VENEZUELA - The "hot corner" stands in the center of Caracas, in Plaza Bolívar. It's a makeshift booth papered with fliers that marks itself as the "launching point to the revolution." There militants rail against imperialism and greedy Yankees all day.
But this is not the excesses and exuberance of a few hometown activists. Across Caracas, appeals for social revolt are the city's constant background music. No matter what you do during the day – jog, ride the subway, simply cross the street – it's there. The murals and banners that drape the city – of revolutionaries "Che" Guevara and Simón Bolívar, of Fidel Castro, and now, of course, of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez – are the curtains onto the hottest stage along the "revolutionary circuit" in the world today. And leftists from everywhere are swarming in to see the show.
LINK TO CON
Monday, March 24, 2008
GMO and Morgellons Disease
by Barbara Peterson
I am currently reading William Engdahl's Seeds of Destruction, which documents the takeover of our global food chain by giant transnational agri-business concerns intent on enslaving the population through GMO technology. I am having difficulty reading this book because after a few pages, I become enraged at the colossal greed and corruption that exists in our corporate government, which has no problem murdering whole populations and eco-systems, and reducing the survivors to a life of abject misery and poverty. I find that after reading just a few pages, I have to put the book down, cool off, then pick it up again and read a few more pages before going through the cycle again. Anyway, as I was going through this cycle of reading, fuming, cooling off, then reading again, a thought occurred to me. What if the advent of Morgellons Disease has something to do with the ingestion of GMO foods? The timing seems to be rather coincidental, so I did some web research, and here is what I found.
Morgellons Disease – What is it?
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by Barbara Peterson
I am currently reading William Engdahl's Seeds of Destruction, which documents the takeover of our global food chain by giant transnational agri-business concerns intent on enslaving the population through GMO technology. I am having difficulty reading this book because after a few pages, I become enraged at the colossal greed and corruption that exists in our corporate government, which has no problem murdering whole populations and eco-systems, and reducing the survivors to a life of abject misery and poverty. I find that after reading just a few pages, I have to put the book down, cool off, then pick it up again and read a few more pages before going through the cycle again. Anyway, as I was going through this cycle of reading, fuming, cooling off, then reading again, a thought occurred to me. What if the advent of Morgellons Disease has something to do with the ingestion of GMO foods? The timing seems to be rather coincidental, so I did some web research, and here is what I found.
Morgellons Disease – What is it?
LINK TO CON
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Mexico approves rules to begin planting GM corn
By Mica Rosenberg
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico, widely thought to be the birthplace of corn, said on Wednesday it will begin allowing experimental planting of genetically modified crops, despite resistance from some farmers who question their safety.
The regulations published in the official gazette are the last step needed to implement a law passed by Mexico's Congress in December 2004 that authorizes controlled GMO plantings.
Supporters of GMO foods, whose DNA is altered to be resistant to pests, say they are a way to boost world food supplies. But farmers in Mexico's rural south, where corn has been grown for thousands of years, worry GM corn will cross-pollinate with native species and alter their genetic content.
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By Mica Rosenberg
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico, widely thought to be the birthplace of corn, said on Wednesday it will begin allowing experimental planting of genetically modified crops, despite resistance from some farmers who question their safety.
The regulations published in the official gazette are the last step needed to implement a law passed by Mexico's Congress in December 2004 that authorizes controlled GMO plantings.
Supporters of GMO foods, whose DNA is altered to be resistant to pests, say they are a way to boost world food supplies. But farmers in Mexico's rural south, where corn has been grown for thousands of years, worry GM corn will cross-pollinate with native species and alter their genetic content.
LINK TO CON
The Return of Sail, and Hemp?
By Andrew C. Revkin
It seems there’s a push toward the future through the past (pedicabs in Manhattan being just one example). Here are two more examples, involving sails on cargo ships and a proposal to legalize farming of hemp, a plant that was once a big crop in the United States, was banned because the industrial variety (very different than the plants grown to smoke) still has a trace of the compounds that give marijuana its punch.
The New Age of Sail
A new age of sail may be a bit closer to reality. The MV Beluga SkySails, the first freighter in the modern era using a kite-like sail along with its conventional engine when the winds are right, completed a transatlantic passage and the owners report that the sail cut fuel burning around 20 percent on days when conditions were right.
On the next trip, a sail twice the 1,700 square feet of the prototype will be used, and the owners say they will encourage the crew to deploy the sail as much as possible by offering 20 percent of saved fuel costs as a bonus. The company, Beluga Shipping GmbH of Bremen, Germany, said it expects to save about $2,000 a day when the sail is deployed. The project is partly underwritten by the European Union.
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By Andrew C. Revkin
It seems there’s a push toward the future through the past (pedicabs in Manhattan being just one example). Here are two more examples, involving sails on cargo ships and a proposal to legalize farming of hemp, a plant that was once a big crop in the United States, was banned because the industrial variety (very different than the plants grown to smoke) still has a trace of the compounds that give marijuana its punch.
The New Age of Sail
A new age of sail may be a bit closer to reality. The MV Beluga SkySails, the first freighter in the modern era using a kite-like sail along with its conventional engine when the winds are right, completed a transatlantic passage and the owners report that the sail cut fuel burning around 20 percent on days when conditions were right.
On the next trip, a sail twice the 1,700 square feet of the prototype will be used, and the owners say they will encourage the crew to deploy the sail as much as possible by offering 20 percent of saved fuel costs as a bonus. The company, Beluga Shipping GmbH of Bremen, Germany, said it expects to save about $2,000 a day when the sail is deployed. The project is partly underwritten by the European Union.
LINK TO CON
VIA TRex
Dear John McCain,
Repeatedly over the last few days you have made what your fluffers call a “gaffe” in describing the current situation in Iraq. You keep trying to tell people that Iran is sponsoring al Qaeda in Iraq, which is absurd on its face, and in a moment I will explain to you why. But I would like to begin by saying that your repeated flub indicates one of two things, neither of which is just that you’re an easily confused but lovable “cranky old man” as Ana Marie Cox sighingly described you to Howard Kurtz on CNN.
Either you honestly don’t understand what’s happening in the region and that ignorance is showing, in spite of the press establishment’s (and wifey Joe Lieberman’s) feverish efforts to prop you up, or you are deliberately lying to bolster the case for a military strike against Iran, neither of which is an acceptable option for a man with his sights set on the highest office in the land. If you had made the mistake once or even twice, perhaps it would be a different matter, an honest error made by a doddering old fool who can’t keep his index cards straight. (That would be fine if we were casting a sequel to Cocoon, by the way, but not at all okay in terms of choosing a president.) But you have kept saying it again and again, which leads me to believe that you honestly don’t understand the basic facts of the war on the ground in Iraq or that you’re willing to openly lie about it to trick the American people into following you into another ridiculous, pointless, expensive war.
CLICK TO CON
Dear John McCain,
Repeatedly over the last few days you have made what your fluffers call a “gaffe” in describing the current situation in Iraq. You keep trying to tell people that Iran is sponsoring al Qaeda in Iraq, which is absurd on its face, and in a moment I will explain to you why. But I would like to begin by saying that your repeated flub indicates one of two things, neither of which is just that you’re an easily confused but lovable “cranky old man” as Ana Marie Cox sighingly described you to Howard Kurtz on CNN.
Either you honestly don’t understand what’s happening in the region and that ignorance is showing, in spite of the press establishment’s (and wifey Joe Lieberman’s) feverish efforts to prop you up, or you are deliberately lying to bolster the case for a military strike against Iran, neither of which is an acceptable option for a man with his sights set on the highest office in the land. If you had made the mistake once or even twice, perhaps it would be a different matter, an honest error made by a doddering old fool who can’t keep his index cards straight. (That would be fine if we were casting a sequel to Cocoon, by the way, but not at all okay in terms of choosing a president.) But you have kept saying it again and again, which leads me to believe that you honestly don’t understand the basic facts of the war on the ground in Iraq or that you’re willing to openly lie about it to trick the American people into following you into another ridiculous, pointless, expensive war.
CLICK TO CON
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Cows Grazing in the Rumpus Room
Allison Arieff, NY TIMES
O.K., the planet is officially out of (or back in?) alignment: American farmers are making money hand over fist while the hedge fund guys are wishing they’d put a little more cash under the mattress. Corn growers in the United States can no longer keep pace with the staggering global demand for the raw material of corn syrup and ethanol and so, seemingly out of nowhere, there’s a demand for more farmland.
That just looks wrong on the page!
But it’s true. We are running out of farmland and some people, like finance guru James Cramer in his recent column for New York magazine urging readers to invest in farm supply equipment, are suggesting — only a little facetiously — that housing developments may need to be razed to clear the way for more farmland.
LINK TO CON
Allison Arieff, NY TIMES
O.K., the planet is officially out of (or back in?) alignment: American farmers are making money hand over fist while the hedge fund guys are wishing they’d put a little more cash under the mattress. Corn growers in the United States can no longer keep pace with the staggering global demand for the raw material of corn syrup and ethanol and so, seemingly out of nowhere, there’s a demand for more farmland.
That just looks wrong on the page!
But it’s true. We are running out of farmland and some people, like finance guru James Cramer in his recent column for New York magazine urging readers to invest in farm supply equipment, are suggesting — only a little facetiously — that housing developments may need to be razed to clear the way for more farmland.
LINK TO CON
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
The Genetic Food Gamble
Heads Monsanto Wins, Tails We Lose
By ROBERT WEISSMAN
There have been few experiments as reckless, overhyped and with as little potential upside as the rapid rollout of genetically modified crops.
Last month, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), a pro-biotech nonprofit, released a report highlighting the proliferation of genetically modified crops. According to ISAAA, biotech crop area grew 12 percent, or 12.3 million hectares, to reach 114.3 million hectares in 2007, the second highest area increase in the past five years.
For the biotech backers, this is cause to celebrate. They claim that biotech helps farmers. They say it promises to reduce hunger and poverty in developing countries. "If we are to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of cutting hunger and poverty in half by 2015," says Clive James, ISAAA founder and the author the just-released report, "biotech crops must play an even bigger role in the next decade."
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Heads Monsanto Wins, Tails We Lose
By ROBERT WEISSMAN
There have been few experiments as reckless, overhyped and with as little potential upside as the rapid rollout of genetically modified crops.
Last month, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), a pro-biotech nonprofit, released a report highlighting the proliferation of genetically modified crops. According to ISAAA, biotech crop area grew 12 percent, or 12.3 million hectares, to reach 114.3 million hectares in 2007, the second highest area increase in the past five years.
For the biotech backers, this is cause to celebrate. They claim that biotech helps farmers. They say it promises to reduce hunger and poverty in developing countries. "If we are to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of cutting hunger and poverty in half by 2015," says Clive James, ISAAA founder and the author the just-released report, "biotech crops must play an even bigger role in the next decade."
LINK TO CON
Coke and Pepsi's New Marketing Strategy: Pull at Your Heart Strings
By Richard Girard, Polaris Institute.
World Water Day 2008 (March 22) will see a flurry of announcements from bottled water companies who claim to be helping solve the globe's water crisis. The catch is that these altruistic claims are intimately tied to major advertising campaigns designed to convince the public to buy their products.
Numerous media and industry reports are saying that sales of bottled water are slowing as a result of campaigns targeting the product's environmental and social impact. In a recent article, Brandweek declared that Pepsi and Coke are facing "evaporating sales growth for bottled water and increased concerns about their products' impact on the environment."
Another report, from industry publication Beverage Digest, said that sales and growth of the bottled water industry in 2007 was about half of what it was in 2006. Recently reported annual results from the world's largest bottled water company Nestlé show a slowdown in growth in its bottled water sector from 2006. According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation, global sales growth has consistently dropped since 2003.
How will the BW giants fight the backlash?
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By Richard Girard, Polaris Institute.
World Water Day 2008 (March 22) will see a flurry of announcements from bottled water companies who claim to be helping solve the globe's water crisis. The catch is that these altruistic claims are intimately tied to major advertising campaigns designed to convince the public to buy their products.
Numerous media and industry reports are saying that sales of bottled water are slowing as a result of campaigns targeting the product's environmental and social impact. In a recent article, Brandweek declared that Pepsi and Coke are facing "evaporating sales growth for bottled water and increased concerns about their products' impact on the environment."
Another report, from industry publication Beverage Digest, said that sales and growth of the bottled water industry in 2007 was about half of what it was in 2006. Recently reported annual results from the world's largest bottled water company Nestlé show a slowdown in growth in its bottled water sector from 2006. According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation, global sales growth has consistently dropped since 2003.
How will the BW giants fight the backlash?
LINK TO CON
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Corn Ethanol is Killing the Gulf of Mexico, Too
by Stacy Feldman
Each summer an oxygen-starved, lifeless “dead zone” swells in the Gulf of Mexico from the toxic nitrogen fertilizer that runs off farms in Midwestern corn country.
But now that dead zone is expanding -- dangerously. And it’s starting to put the health of a nearly $3 billion fishing industry and an entire ecosystem of aquatic life at risk.
Last year the dead zone covered an area the size of New Jersey -- 7,700 square miles.
The culprit? The USA’s corn ethanol boom. That’s the conclusion of new research published in the Proceedings of the National Journal of Sciences.
It was carried out by two professors, geographer Simon Donner of the University of British Columbia and atmospheric scientist Christopher Kucharik of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
LINK TO CON.
by Stacy Feldman
Each summer an oxygen-starved, lifeless “dead zone” swells in the Gulf of Mexico from the toxic nitrogen fertilizer that runs off farms in Midwestern corn country.
But now that dead zone is expanding -- dangerously. And it’s starting to put the health of a nearly $3 billion fishing industry and an entire ecosystem of aquatic life at risk.
Last year the dead zone covered an area the size of New Jersey -- 7,700 square miles.
The culprit? The USA’s corn ethanol boom. That’s the conclusion of new research published in the Proceedings of the National Journal of Sciences.
It was carried out by two professors, geographer Simon Donner of the University of British Columbia and atmospheric scientist Christopher Kucharik of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
LINK TO CON.
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